Container sealed against liquids

ABSTRACT

A liquid sealed container and lid made of synthetic material of the type wherein the lid is sealed with respect to the container opening by means of matching annular sealing ribs and grooves and is held in position by a clamping ring characterized by the provision of at least one sealing rib having a sidewall conically expanding toward the free end of the rib and a groove engaged by the rib has its sidewall adjacent the conical rib sidewall pressed onto the latter when the lid is in position.

ited tates atem I I l l Inventor Heinz Rocher 23 Stahlenstrasse, 521 l Lulsdorf, Germany Appl. No. 888,171 Filed June 16, 1969 Patented Aug. 17, 1971 Priority June 15, 1968 Germany CONTAINER SEALED AGAINST LIQUIDS 8 Claims, 5 Drawing Figs.

U.S. Cl 220/46 Int. Cl 1B65d 53/00 Field of Search 220/46, 55,

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,424,340 1/1969 Rocher 220/55 3,510,023 5/1970 Ullman et al. 220/60 Primary Examiner-George T. Hall Attorney-Wolfe, Hubbard, Leydig, Voit & Osann PMWEU ms I 1 IQYI SHEET 1 BF 2 PATENTEUAUGI'IISYI 3,599,826

sum 2 0F 2 Flgz CONTAINER SEALED AGAINST LIQUIDS The invention relates generally to containers that are sealed against liquids, and which are provided with a lid sealing the opening of the container and held in position by a clamping ring. The invention relates more specifically to such containers made of a synthetic material which has been provided with a lid in the first instance also consisting of a synthetic material, yet wherein the sealing capacity is maintained even when the edge of the container is severely jolted or when permanent deformation in the edge of the containers occur.

Such containers which may have the shape of a barrel or vessel, if they are large, are nowadays mainly manufactured by the so-called blowing method in which a preliminary formed article is blown against the inside of a mold. During this process this article is stretched to such an extent that the required small wall thickness for the wall of the container is obtained, so that the container, while being sufficiently strong, has a weight which is as low as possible and the material costs are kept down. Since in these containers the diameter of the opening in the container roughly corresponds with the diameter of the container, the edge of the opening has only a relatively slight rigidity when the wall thickness of the wall of the container is as small as has been described. It has already been tried to countereffect the disadvantages caused by this lack of rigidity to some extent by providing an annular groove, or the like, inside the inner side of the container wall right near the edge of the opening thereof, positioning a stiffening ring in said groove. This stiffening ring which has been inserted loosely is not adapted, however, to take any severe jolts on the edge of the container, so that leakage may easily occur.

According to the present invention, the container is characterized in that the lid and the upper edge of the container have been provided with novel corresponding sealing ribs and sealing rings, that mate to each other, and which sealingly engage when the lid is in the closed position. To this end, one sidewall of at least one of these ribs is shaped so as to flare conically towards the free end of the rib, said rib being adapted to engage into a groove, the sidewall of which, that faces the conical sidewall of the rib, adapted to be pressed tight onto the rib. A conical plane may serve to hold and press on the sidewall of the groove, said conical part being provided on the opposite part, which conical part is displaced when the clamping ring is tightened against the sidewall of the groove, forcing it against the rib.

The lid is preferably provided with an efficient annular edge which engages around the container edge from the outside, having a hooked projection in the vicinity of its free end, which hooked projection can be forced by the outer clamping ring behind an annular part of the container according to the invention the lid has, in addition, to the annular outer wall and an inner centering rib, engaging the container opening, an extra sealing rib with a cylindrical inner sidewall and an outer sidewall conically expanding towards the free end of the rib, while the container has been provided with a groove around the opening of the container, one sidewall of said groove being situated between the sealing rib and the centering rib together with the inner wall of the container opening, whereas the other sidewall is situated between the sealing rib and the outer edge of the lid. The conical ring surface serving to tighten the one sidewall of the groove may then be provided at the inner side of that annular edge of the lid. The sealing groove may also be provided in a special profiled ring which has been placed inside the mold in order to mold the container and is welded to the container wall. It is also feasible, however, to mold the sealing groove as part of the container during the blowing process when the blank is made into a container.

While the invention is susceptible of various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that it is not intended to limit the invention to the particular forms disclosed, but, on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.

FIGS. 13 show a first embodiment with an attached profiled ring such as that which has been placed in the mold before the blowing process has been started.

FIGS. 4 and 5 show a slightly altered embodiment with a profiled edge molded onto the container.

With the embodiment according to FIGS. 1-3, which show various positions of the parts in relation to each other during the closing process, a profiled ring 12 was placed in the mold before the container wall 11 was blown, said ring 12 forming a welded joint with the walk of the container as soon as the wall 11 abutted against said ring during the blowing process. This ring 12 has been provided with a groove 13 in the vicinity of its uppermost face, one sidewall 14 of said groove 13 engaging the wall 11 of the container, whereas the other sidewall 15 is projecting freely upwards.

A lid 16 has been provided for the container, which lid has a centering rib 17, which engages with the opening of the container when the lid 16 is put on and moves forwards from this opening to the inturned edge 18 of the container wall 12, in which inturned edge the lower edge 20 of the clamping ring 19, serving to lock the lid, moves from the outside to the inside. The uppermost flange-shaped edge 21 of the clamping ring l9 is situated on an inclined face 22 of the lid 16 and thus pushes the lid into the containeropening when this ring is tightened. The lid 16 has been provided with an annular edge part 23 on its outer circumference, which edge part has been provided with a hooked part 24 on its free end. This hooked part may be moved from the outside onto the ring 12 (FIG. 1), when the lid is put on.

On tightening the clamping ring 19 the part 24 moves towards the level of an annular part 25 of the ring 12 (FIG. 2), the part 24 finally being forced behind it once the clamping ring 19 has been completely tightened. A sealing rib 26 has been provided between the centering rib 17 and the outer edge part 23 of the lid, which sealing rib possesses an inner cylindrical sidewall 27 and an outer conical sidewall 28 and the free end of which is thicker than its hindmost end, which is connected to the lid.

This sealing rib 26 moves into the groove 13 when the lid is placed in the container opening. As soon as the position according to FIG. 1 has been reached, a conical face 29 engages with the sidewall 15, said conical face being present on the inside of the annular edge part 23 of the lid, and forcing the sidewall 15 of the groove inwards (FIG. 2), when the clamping ring is tightened, until this sidewall entirely abuts against the conical sidewall 28 of the sealing rib 26 (FIG. 3). The rib 26 and the groove 13 thus form a dovetailed joint and an undetachable connection. An additional sealing may be had by placing a sealing inlay 30 in a recess on the inner side of the lid, which inlay abuts against the upper edge of the container opening when the lid is in position. In order to protect the clamping ring 19 under adverse circumstances a flat recess 31 has been provided on the outside of the angular edge part 23, in which recess a metal strip may be placed, which when tightened will force the edge 23 with the hooked part 24 behind the part 25 making it impossible for the lid to be raised.

The embodiment according to the FIGS. 4 and 5 substantially corresponds to the embodiment according to FIGS. 1- 3, the embodiment of the lid also being practically identical, so that the same numerals have been used for the identical parts. The clamping ring, which may be replaced here, too, by a metal strip, has been left out for the sake of clarity. The main difference between the embodiment according to FIGS. 4 and 5 and that according to FIGS. 1-3 is that in this case no profiled ring 12 has been used and the entire container may be manufactured from one piece when the blowing method is applied. When applying this method first a container is molded which, after blowing the blank has the shape indicated by broken lines in FIG. 4 in the area of the edge. The still warm and easily moldable container'edge is then bent outwards and downwards, while it is still in the mold or after at least partial liberation from the mold, at an angle of 90 in the direction indicated by the arrow 41 in FIG. 4, so that the shape is obtained which is indicated by full lines in FIG. 4. By this arrangement a groove 42 has been furnished, which corresponds to groove 13 of the first embodiment into which the sealing rib 26 of the lid 16 slides. The one sidewall 43 of the groove 42 engages here, too, with the upper end of the container wall above the inturned edge 18, whereas the other sidewall 44 projects freely upwards. The bottom of the groove 42, together with its outer edges form the annularly protruding part 45. Similar to the embodiment according to the FIGS. l3, the sidewall 44 of the groove may be forced inwards against the conical face 28 of the rib 26 by the conical face 29 present on the inside of the edge 23 of the lid when the lid 16 is mounted on the container, and during this process the hooked part 24 of the outer edge 23 will finally engage with the container wall behind the annular part 45 thereof. The sealing ring 30 engages with the connection between the sidewall 43 of the groove and the container wall 1 1.

Furthermore, it is mentioned that a great many embodiments may be used, naturally, particularly such in which the dovetailed rib has been provided on the container wall and the corresponding sealing groove on the lid. in this arrangement a conical face of the edge of the lid is adapted directly to engage with the conical face of the rib when the outer edge of the lid with the hooked part is pressed on.

I claim:

1. In a liquid sealed container and lid made from synthetic material, wherein said lid is adapted to seal the opening of the container and be held in position by a clamping ring or the like, and the container and lid having matching annular sealing ribs and sealing grooves which mate when the lid is in the closed position, the combination, comprising, at least one sealing rib having a sidewall conically expanding toward the free end of the rib and engaging within a first one of said grooves, the sidewall of which, faces the conical sidewall of the rib, and said first groove sidewall being forced into the rib conical sidewall upon application of said clamping ring.

2. A container and lid in accordance with claim 1, wherein the groove sidewall which is forced onto the conical rib wall engages a sidewall of a second groove having a conical sidewall face that presses the first groove sidewall onto the conical face of the rib when the clamping ring is tightened.

3. A container in accordance with claim 1, wherein the lid includes an annular depending outer edge having a hooked part at its free end, said hooked part being adapted to be forced behind an annular part of the container wall by the clamping ring.

4. A container and lid in accordance with claim I, wherein said sealing rib depends from the inside of the lid and said first groove with which it mates is formed on the upper edge of the container surrounding the opening thereof.

5. A container and lid in accordance with claim 4, wherein the conical second groove wall for pressing said first groove sidewall into the conical side of said sealing rib is formed on the inside of an outer depending annular edge of the lid.

6. A container and lid in accordance with claim 4, wherein said rib engaging first groove of the container is formed in a separate profiled ring secured to the container wall surrounding the lid receiving opening.

7. A container and lid in accordance with claim 4, wherein said rib engaging first groove is an integrally formed bent over upper edge portion of the container.

8. A container and lid in accordance with claim 1, wherein said lid includes a depending inner annular centering rib engageable with the container opening, the container wall being provided with an inturned annular surrounding groove the inside surface of which is sealingly engaged by said central depending rib disposed within the container opening and said clamping ring having an inturned lower annular edge which fits against the outside surface of said container wall groove when the clamping ring is tightened. 

1. In a liquid sealed container and lid made from synthetic material, wherein said lid is adapted to seal the opening of the container and be held in position by a clamping ring or the like, and the container and lid having matching annular sealing ribs and sealing grooves which mate when the lid is in the closed position, the combination, comprising, at least one sealing rib having a sidewall conically expanding toward the free end of the rib and engaging within a first one of said grooves, the sidewall of which, faces the conical sidewall of the rib, and said first groove sidewall being forced onto the rib conical sidewall upon application of said clamping ring.
 2. A container and lid in accordance with claim 1, wherein the groove sidewall which is forced onto the conical rib wall engages a sidewall of a second groove having a conical sidewall face that prEsses the first groove sidewall onto the conical face of the rib when the clamping ring is tightened.
 3. A container in accordance with claim 1, wherein the lid includes an annular depending outer edge having a hooked part at its free end, said hooked part being adapted to be forced behind an annular part of the container wall by the clamping ring.
 4. A container and lid in accordance with claim 1, wherein said sealing rib depends from the inside of the lid and said first groove with which it mates is formed on the upper edge of the container surrounding the opening thereof.
 5. A container and lid in accordance with claim 4, wherein the conical second groove wall for pressing said first groove sidewall into the conical side of said sealing rib is formed on the inside of an outer depending annular edge of the lid.
 6. A container and lid in accordance with claim 4, wherein said rib engaging first groove of the container is formed in a separate profiled ring secured to the container wall surrounding the lid receiving opening.
 7. A container and lid in accordance with claim 4, wherein said rib engaging first groove is an integrally formed bent over upper edge portion of the container.
 8. A container and lid in accordance with claim 1, wherein said lid includes a depending inner annular centering rib engageable with the container opening, the container wall being provided with an inturned annular surrounding groove the inside surface of which is sealingly engaged by said central depending rib disposed within the container opening and said clamping ring having an inturned lower annular edge which fits against the outside surface of said container wall groove when the clamping ring is tightened. 